Professor Anthony Axon, of the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Leeds, said: "Gallstones are terribly common and they will become more so with the diets that we are eating today.

"It's an important area to research and any scientific advance is to applauded."

But he said gallstones are not usually picked up until they cause a problem, by which time the condition is advanced.

"So how any agent like this would work under those circumstances is questionable."

He said an agent similar to this might be useful if you could spot which people were at risk of gallstones and intervene early.

Dr Martin Sarner, of University College Hospital and CORE (formerly the Digestive Diseases Foundation), said: "Understanding the formation of the disease and how to interrupt it is very interesting, but it is a long way from having a useable medicine at this stage."